Randall, can you provide me some direction as to how to be proficient in javascript. Javascript is being increasingly used to do 'hack' type of stuff on our web-based application which is run by servlets and jsp on the server side. I have done many tutorials available on the net. I have even taken a class at my company which was taught by a graphic artist. The whole class was a revamp of tutorials on the net which mainly focus on how to do this or that. Which book is good for getting all those properties and ways to get access to those properties. Thanks in advance for your help.

[This message has been edited by Randall Twede (edited August 10, 2001).]

Tony Alicea
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posted Aug 10, 2001 18:21:00

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Since we are talking about JavaScript (JS): JS is an UNTYPED language. Java is a STRONGLY TYPED language. The same variable in JS can morph from a string to an integer (or to an array or to anyhing else) in no time: i = "AbscDegf"; . . . i = 1; PERFECTLY LEGAL!

And the main difference between JavaScript and Java is that they have very little in common. Except for the "Java" string in front of the JavaScript name. Many years ago the dudes at Netscape (before it was owned by the *Kindergarden-approach-to-ISPs* that is AmericaOffline) called it LiveScript first (instead of JavaScript). At that moment, Java as a full-fledged programming language was beginning to capture programmer minds and Netscape asked Sun Microsystems (as the story goes...) if they could use Java as part of the name for this new SCRIPTING language that they developed. JavaScript is a scripting language for client side computing and Java is a general purpose programming language. Java's built-in support for threads, networking, exception handling and GUI programming makes it the best programming language that there is for real-world applications (versus university classrooms). I should know; I began programming professionally in Dec. 1974 in FORTRAN and Assembly language. Much later after that, I learned C. Although JavaScript can be used for server-side programming, I still have to meet or hear from one programmer that actually did so. The main disadvantage of using JavaScript in public web development apps is that if you don't program consciously also for the occasional browser that is not supporting JS, you run the risk of alienating some potential customers. Saludos! Tony

Originally posted by Randall Twede:Tony, I heard that ASP writers use server side javascript(or vbscript)

I originally used VBScript for ASP because all the example sites do. I learned the hard way that VBScript sucks. I was missing an end statement in a complex application (or maybe I had an extra if somewhere or somethin) and never found it. In JavaScript, you have nice curly braces to match start of a block to its end. I've also found that JavaScript objects are genuinly useful for ASP applications.

I've developed in ASP for 2 years and mostly Vbscript. Javascript is nice though. when doing server side javascript you can do it an oop kind of way . Do not however try oop in asp. The code intends to be very slow. How do you like this array?? <Script langaug="Javascript">